January 7, 2013, 4:40PM

01/07/2013

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A 19-year-old Petaluma woman found dead in the snow near South Lake Tahoe appeared to have taken a wrong turn on New Year's Eve and wandered through the snow a short distance before shedding her winter jacket and coming to rest behind a snow bank, authorities said Monday.

Alyssa Byrne was found dead three days later, her boot prints the only ones in the vicinity. The pattern of the footprints suggested disorientation that may have been caused by alcohol consumption, hypothermia, or both, an El Dorado County sheriff's official said.

Alyssa Byrne vigil

Once reported, news of her disappearance lead to an outpouring of support in Petaluma. Friends started up several Facebook pages dedicated to finding Byrne, while local fundraisers began to help raise reward money to aid in the ongoing search.

A candlelight vigil was held at Casa Grande High School Friday evening at 7 p.m. to honor the memory of 19-year-old Alyssa Byrne, a Petaluma woman who disappeared on New Year's Eve in South Lake Tahoe. Byrne was attending the three-day Snowglobe Music Festival with friends at the time she went missing.

Friends laid flowers and lit candles at a shrine set up at the back of the high school campus where Byrne graduated from in 2011. The silent vigil lasted for more than an hour. Ocassionally, people would step from the crowd and place a new bouquet along the base of the shrine.

Byrne's body was located at approximately 8:30 a.m. Friday morning, in the snow not far from the concert grounds in South Lake Tahoe. Authorities said that no visible signs of foul play could be seen on Byrne's body, but added that final autopsy reports would not be available for about a month.

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

Young people stood together, crying and consoling one another, and occasionally regaled each other with happy memories of Alyssa.

More than 300 people gathered in the parking lot of Casa Grande High School Friday night for a candlelight vigil to honor the memory of 19-year-old Alyssa Byrne, who died after the Snowglobe Music Festival in South Lake Tahoe.

Back in Petaluma, friends of the Byrne family decided to host an impromptu candlelight vigil Friday night. Approximately 300 people showed up to the Casa Grande High School student parking lot, and stood silently for more than an hour.

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

Former Casa Grande High School lacrosse teammates of Byrne huddled together at the far side of the shrine and comforted one another. As tears rolled down their cheeks, the girls recalled their fondest memories of Byne, while hugging each other throughout the night.

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

Young people arrange candles at the shrine dedicated to Byrne on the Casa Grande High School parking lot.

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

John O'Hara / for the Argus Cou

Former Casa Grande lacrosse teammates of Byrne mourn her passing.

Greg Byrne, Alyssa's older brother, addressed the large crowd Friday night. He thanked everyone for their support and encouraged people to celebrate the memory of his sister. Beyond the Glory, where Greg Byrne works, is hosting a Dine and Donate event all day Saturday, with the proceeds set to be donated to The Polly Klass Foundation and The Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Erik Chang said some words.

Friends wrote loving thoughts on signs and cards that adorned the candlelit shrine on the Casa Grande High School campus. Authorities will continue to investigate Byrne's death in South Lake Tahoe and said that autopsy results should be available in about a month. Byrne's father, Kevin Byrne, was on his way home from the Tahoe area during the vigil, after having travelled to South Lake Tahoe to aid authorities with the search for his daughter.

"I don't want to speculate," sheriff's Lt. Pete Van Arnum said, though he confirmed authorities have received reports that Byrne had been drinking while in town with friends for an outdoor music festival.

He also noted that advanced hypothermia causes confusion and deteriorating cognition. Victims can become disoriented and lose judgment.

"It was subzero that night and, depending on how long she was out in the cold, that could have affected her," Van Arnum said.

Experts say it's common for those with fatal hypothermia to remove clothing shortly before death because of physiological changes that cause a spreading sense of warmth.

Byrne, a 2011 Casa Grande High School graduate, was attending the three-day SnowGlobe Music Festival at Lake Tahoe Community College when she died late New Year's Eve or early the next morning.

She had driven to Lake Tahoe the previous Saturday with three friends and was sharing a room with them at the Horizon Casino Resort in nearby Stateline.

But on New Year's Eve she got ahead of her friends in a concert crowd and suddenly disappeared around 11 p.m., telling a friend by cellphone 30 minutes later that she was taking a shuttle bus back to the hotel. They never saw her again.

For the next three days, family and friends conducted an increasingly frantic search for clues to what happened to her.

On Friday morning, a public utility worker perched atop an elevated truck peered over a four-foot snow bank and spotted her lifeless body about a half-mile from the junior college campus, authorities said.

Byrne was lying about 10 feet off Pioneer Trail, near Al Tahoe Boulevard, which leads to the college campus and runs between Pioneer Trail and Highway 50.

Authorities said long shuttle bus lines may have caused her to join others who elected to walk back to Stateline — an approximately 4-mile route that would have followed Al Tahoe Boulevard and then turned left along Pioneer Trail, headed northeast. It also is possible she walked through the campus instead of taking a bike path used by others, Van Arnum said.

But her final location indicated she turned right on Pioneer Trail, rather then left, walked along the road a ways and then climbed over a 4-foot berm of frozen snow pushed off the roadway, Van Arnum said.

"Most of the people, if they were walking on foot and if they were headed back to the Stateline area, would have been going the other direction," he said.

Her boot prints were visible coming over the berm and heading southwest for about 100 yards along the back side of the snow bank, he said.

"It looked like she was kind of disoriented from the foot prints. They kind of wandered a bit," he said.

She was fully clothed when she died except for her white ski jacket, which was found a short distance away, he said.

Investigators hope a forensic autopsy scheduled Tuesday in Sacramento will shed some light on what happened.

A full toxicology panel would automatically be included but will be an important investigative tool in Byrne's case. The toxicology tests will be run through an independent lab and could take a full month, Van Arnum said.

A 19-year-old Petaluma woman found dead in the snow near South Lake Tahoe appeared to have taken a wrong turn on New Year's Eve and wandered through the snow a short distance before shedding her winter jacket and coming to rest behind a snow bank, authorities said Monday.

Alyssa Byrne was found dead three days later, her boot prints the only ones in the vicinity. The pattern of the footprints suggested disorientation that may have been caused by alcohol consumption, hypothermia, or both, an El Dorado County sheriff's official said.

"I don't want to speculate," sheriff's Lt. Pete Van Arnum said, though he confirmed authorities have received reports that Byrne had been drinking while in town with friends for an outdoor music festival.

He also noted that advanced hypothermia causes confusion and deteriorating cognition. Victims can become disoriented and lose judgment.

"It was subzero that night and, depending on how long she was out in the cold, that could have affected her," Van Arnum said.

Experts say it's common for those with fatal hypothermia to remove clothing shortly before death because of physiological changes that cause a spreading sense of warmth.

Byrne, a 2011 Casa Grande High School graduate, was attending the three-day SnowGlobe Music Festival at Lake Tahoe Community College when she died late New Year's Eve or early the next morning.

She had driven to Lake Tahoe the previous Saturday with three friends and was sharing a room with them at the Horizon Casino Resort in nearby Stateline.

But on New Year's Eve she got ahead of her friends in a concert crowd and suddenly disappeared around 11 p.m., telling a friend by cellphone 30 minutes later that she was taking a shuttle bus back to the hotel. They never saw her again.

For the next three days, family and friends conducted an increasingly frantic search for clues to what happened to her.

On Friday morning, a public utility worker perched atop an elevated truck peered over a four-foot snow bank and spotted her lifeless body about a half-mile from the junior college campus, authorities said.

Byrne was lying about 10 feet off Pioneer Trail, near Al Tahoe Boulevard, which leads to the college campus and runs between Pioneer Trail and Highway 50.

Authorities said long shuttle bus lines may have caused her to join others who elected to walk back to Stateline — an approximately 4-mile route that would have followed Al Tahoe Boulevard and then turned left along Pioneer Trail, headed northeast. It also is possible she walked through the campus instead of taking a bike path used by others, Van Arnum said.

But her final location indicated she turned right on Pioneer Trail, rather then left, walked along the road a ways and then climbed over a 4-foot berm of frozen snow pushed off the roadway, Van Arnum said.

"Most of the people, if they were walking on foot and if they were headed back to the Stateline area, would have been going the other direction," he said.

Her boot prints were visible coming over the berm and heading southwest for about 100 yards along the back side of the snow bank, he said.

"It looked like she was kind of disoriented from the foot prints. They kind of wandered a bit," he said.

She was fully clothed when she died except for her white ski jacket, which was found a short distance away, he said.

Investigators hope a forensic autopsy scheduled Tuesday in Sacramento will shed some light on what happened.

A full toxicology panel would automatically be included but will be an important investigative tool in Byrne's case. The toxicology tests will be run through an independent lab and could take a full month, Van Arnum said.

A 19-year-old Petaluma woman found dead in the snow near South Lake Tahoe appeared to have taken a wrong turn on New Year's Eve and wandered through the snow a short distance before shedding her winter jacket and coming to rest behind a snow bank, authorities said Monday.

Alyssa Byrne was found dead three days later, her boot prints the only ones in the vicinity. The pattern of the footprints suggested disorientation that may have been caused by alcohol consumption, hypothermia, or both, an El Dorado County sheriff's official said.

"I don't want to speculate," sheriff's Lt. Pete Van Arnum said, though he confirmed authorities have received reports that Byrne had been drinking while in town with friends for an outdoor music festival.

He also noted that advanced hypothermia causes confusion and deteriorating cognition. Victims can become disoriented and lose judgment.

"It was subzero that night and, depending on how long she was out in the cold, that could have affected her," Van Arnum said.

Experts say it's common for those with fatal hypothermia to remove clothing shortly before death because of physiological changes that cause a spreading sense of warmth.

Byrne, a 2011 Casa Grande High School graduate, was attending the three-day SnowGlobe Music Festival at Lake Tahoe Community College when she died late New Year's Eve or early the next morning.

She had driven to Lake Tahoe the previous Saturday with three friends and was sharing a room with them at the Horizon Casino Resort in nearby Stateline.

But on New Year's Eve she got ahead of her friends in a concert crowd and suddenly disappeared around 11 p.m., telling a friend by cellphone 30 minutes later that she was taking a shuttle bus back to the hotel. They never saw her again.

For the next three days, family and friends conducted an increasingly frantic search for clues to what happened to her.

On Friday morning, a public utility worker perched atop an elevated truck peered over a four-foot snow bank and spotted her lifeless body about a half-mile from the junior college campus, authorities said.

Byrne was lying about 10 feet off Pioneer Trail, near Al Tahoe Boulevard, which leads to the college campus and runs between Pioneer Trail and Highway 50.

Authorities said long shuttle bus lines may have caused her to join others who elected to walk back to Stateline — an approximately 4-mile route that would have followed Al Tahoe Boulevard and then turned left along Pioneer Trail, headed northeast. It also is possible she walked through the campus instead of taking a bike path used by others, Van Arnum said.

But her final location indicated she turned right on Pioneer Trail, rather then left, walked along the road a ways and then climbed over a 4-foot berm of frozen snow pushed off the roadway, Van Arnum said.

"Most of the people, if they were walking on foot and if they were headed back to the Stateline area, would have been going the other direction," he said.

Her boot prints were visible coming over the berm and heading southwest for about 100 yards along the back side of the snow bank, he said.

"It looked like she was kind of disoriented from the foot prints. They kind of wandered a bit," he said.

She was fully clothed when she died except for her white ski jacket, which was found a short distance away, he said.

Investigators hope a forensic autopsy scheduled Tuesday in Sacramento will shed some light on what happened.

A full toxicology panel would automatically be included but will be an important investigative tool in Byrne's case. The toxicology tests will be run through an independent lab and could take a full month, Van Arnum said.

A 19-year-old Petaluma woman found dead in the snow near South Lake Tahoe appeared to have taken a wrong turn on New Year's Eve and wandered through the snow a short distance before shedding her winter jacket and coming to rest behind a snow bank, authorities said Monday.

Alyssa Byrne was found dead three days later, her boot prints the only ones in the vicinity. The pattern of the footprints suggested disorientation that may have been caused by alcohol consumption, hypothermia, or both, an El Dorado County sheriff's official said.

"I don't want to speculate," sheriff's Lt. Pete Van Arnum said, though he confirmed authorities have received reports that Byrne had been drinking while in town with friends for an outdoor music festival.

He also noted that advanced hypothermia causes confusion and deteriorating cognition. Victims can become disoriented and lose judgment.

"It was subzero that night and, depending on how long she was out in the cold, that could have affected her," Van Arnum said.

Experts say it's common for those with fatal hypothermia to remove clothing shortly before death because of physiological changes that cause a spreading sense of warmth.

Byrne, a 2011 Casa Grande High School graduate, was attending the three-day SnowGlobe Music Festival at Lake Tahoe Community College when she died late New Year's Eve or early the next morning.

She had driven to Lake Tahoe the previous Saturday with three friends and was sharing a room with them at the Horizon Casino Resort in nearby Stateline.

But on New Year's Eve she got ahead of her friends in a concert crowd and suddenly disappeared around 11 p.m., telling a friend by cellphone 30 minutes later that she was taking a shuttle bus back to the hotel. They never saw her again.

For the next three days, family and friends conducted an increasingly frantic search for clues to what happened to her.

On Friday morning, a public utility worker perched atop an elevated truck peered over a four-foot snow bank and spotted her lifeless body about a half-mile from the junior college campus, authorities said.

Byrne was lying about 10 feet off Pioneer Trail, near Al Tahoe Boulevard, which leads to the college campus and runs between Pioneer Trail and Highway 50.

Authorities said long shuttle bus lines may have caused her to join others who elected to walk back to Stateline — an approximately 4-mile route that would have followed Al Tahoe Boulevard and then turned left along Pioneer Trail, headed northeast. It also is possible she walked through the campus instead of taking a bike path used by others, Van Arnum said.

But her final location indicated she turned right on Pioneer Trail, rather then left, walked along the road a ways and then climbed over a 4-foot berm of frozen snow pushed off the roadway, Van Arnum said.

"Most of the people, if they were walking on foot and if they were headed back to the Stateline area, would have been going the other direction," he said.

Her boot prints were visible coming over the berm and heading southwest for about 100 yards along the back side of the snow bank, he said.

"It looked like she was kind of disoriented from the foot prints. They kind of wandered a bit," he said.

She was fully clothed when she died except for her white ski jacket, which was found a short distance away, he said.

Investigators hope a forensic autopsy scheduled Tuesday in Sacramento will shed some light on what happened.

A full toxicology panel would automatically be included but will be an important investigative tool in Byrne's case. The toxicology tests will be run through an independent lab and could take a full month, Van Arnum said.